^ That was my own take on it but frankly Caine has never struck me as the sharpest tool in the box.

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Yeah. Especially in that radio interview when the co-host tries to wonder how it could be reality, and he says, "But the children were wearing the same clothes as in the dream throughout the film" (to paraphrase), and Caine simply retorts, "It was a dream", and then there's this semi-lengthy silence where no one says anything (I can only imagine the co-host just staring blankly at Caine ).

I can buy that. I'm one of those folks who can see it both ways (dream or no). That said, I listened to an NPR interview with Caine recently and he sounded quite lucid. I wasn't confused or wondering what he was talking about at any point. Just sayin'.

Other than the first reveal about a dream within a dream, this was an extremely straight forward movie, so people who spend a lot of time talking about how they were confused and lost throughout the movie despite multiple viewings lose some credibility right there.

^ Yeah, I suspect that the idea is for you to make of it what you will.

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But this is America, we are too stupid to realize that!

Honestly I enjoyed the film and so did a friend who I saw it with, we never disgust the ending because we probably see it differently. All I said to him about the movie is how this was supposed to be this insanely smart movie, that it was hard to follow, would go over everyones' heads. It wasn't any of that! People are just stupid! The movie explained everything they needed to point blank, in your face, and people after the movie finished went "I loved it, but I don't understand it!" Idiots.

Just take from the movie what you want to take from it and enjoy, it doesn't need to be over analyzed to death.

The top starts to fall. Actually seeing it fall is irrelevant.
By the rules of the story, the top falling means the scene is real. If the rules the movie spent so much time on are pointless, so is the movie.

Other than the first reveal about a dream within a dream, this was an extremely straight forward movie, so people who spend a lot of time talking about how they were confused and lost throughout the movie despite multiple viewings lose some credibility right there.

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Actually, on thinking it all thru, I was so convinced that Dom meets his real kids (otherwise there is no closure to his story) that I strongly wonder why Nolan chose to end it trying to make it ambiguous. I just don't understand why you would choose to make the audience ask that question if it should be so overwhelmingly weighted on one side...

The top was clearly undergoing precession, meaning it will inevitably fall, and the kids at the end were meant to be around two years older and were played by different actors. Seems pretty clear that he was in the real world to me.

The top starts to fall. Actually seeing it fall is irrelevant. By the rules of the story, the top falling means the scene is real. If the rules the movie spent so much time on are pointless, so is the movie.

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I don't think the rules were fully explored. The idea of the totem was that it was a "tell" on subconscious belief; the subconscious always knew if things were a dream or not. However, what happens when you accept something so fully that even your subconscious is fooled?

People can crack; they can go insane and throw all rules of subconscious thought out the window. I think the top was giving up and falling because he was also falling and giving up (our last "real" sight of him being the murder of his shadow wife - an act that could have finally pushed him over the edge).

Whether or not the top was about to fall is irrelevant. The film stopped before it did and Nolan was making a statment by doing so. If you wanted a definitive answer than this is not the film for you, sorry.

If you wanted a definitive answer than this is not the film for you, sorry.

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I'm just sharing thoughts that came to me after watching the film; I'm not saying anyone has to agree. Strangely enough, you seem to be telling us that there's only one answer (no answer) and we should go away if we don't agree with you. You see your open thought as the absolute definitive; I make no such claim for my thought.

I see the ending like Schrodinger's cat. The top neither remains spinning nor falls within the audience's perception, therefore the story's "quantum state" is never collapsed.

That is, it is both a dream and reality.

It's a statement about fiction in general.

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Funny you should phrase it that way, as the "official" trope name for this also involves cats. (I also like that the entry there for Inception essentially states that Nolan incepted the audience by not showing the top falling.)